What a good Crisis it’s been

By Ocean in Articles, Current Events, Featured, Our Theory

Companies like AIG and Lehman Brothers, along with many banks, have ceased to exist. Unfortunately many jobs have been lost and many people displaced. Let’s hope for the best for all of them. Also, many people have lost money in the housing market and have had to foreclose. But apart from this hasn’t it been a great crisis?

First of all, none of us has found jobs, so many of us have decided to study some more. We’re hoping extra degrees will make us more marketable and hopefully a couple years will be enough to ride out this crisis. So in a couple years the number of people holding advanced degrees will be huge. This is great news for the economy, especially the knowledge economy and advancement at all levels of industry.

There has also been a huge increase in new business owners, and the number will continue to increase all year. As people don’t find jobs, or are forced out of their current jobs, they find themselves having to try out that business idea that had been in the back of their head for some time. And, as the Nytimes, WSJ and Gallup all agree, this is a good thing.

On a personal note, we’ve all learned how to do more with less. Like those of us who, after years of hearing how great it is for the environment, finally realized it does pay to drive less. We started carpooling, taking public transportation, and even bicycling. The earth thanks us. We’ve learned, or re-learned, how to be frugal: an art that is always good to know, even in good times.

And, for those who say markets don’t work by themselves, would you have preferred it if we continued buying and building houses with subprime loans and thinking we can keep expanding ad infinitum? Maybe a crisis is just what is needed every now and again to bring us back to reality.